Exotic brew

Exotic Brew is a concise and elegant account of the eating and drinking habits of the upper classes in the 18th Century, written by one of the foremost historians of food and social manners in Europe. Camporesi examines the shift from a rich, heavy diet to a much lighter one which emphasized 'exotic' foods like tea, coffee and chocolate. This shift was, he argues, a sign of the profound transformations in fashion, taste and manners that took place in Italy and the rest of Europe in the Enlightenment. He describes how the upper classes were anxious to leave behind the heritage of the 'dark'…